fae_alba

OK, so I failed fan bones 101. I made it through the rigging of one half of Pappa Bear, CP weighted the ankle, knee, hip, shoulder (still some issues there) and started work on the elbow. I have been using one of the sample models that was included with the 2008 rig instructions. When I set the cp weighting for the middle ring of the elbow to 100% of the fan bone it distorts the mesh. Any ideas on what might have caused this?

So I've got the 2008 rig half installed, and am now adding in cp weighting. One thing I am wondering about as I go trough this process (strangely I'm rather enjoying the process this time through!), some areas of the mesh on the model look great when a bone is rotated along a more "normal" range of motion, but when you push it tho the extreme, the mesh distorts beyond an exceptable amount. My goal is to make the animation process as simple as possible by making sure that the model behaves well, with as little of the irritating distortions that could happen (bones being twisted all over the place, etc.) Is there a way to place limits on the rig so that so the pelvis bone cannot be rotated beyond a certain value? I'm thinking that doing that might make things a bit easier for me. I can't show what I mean right now since I'm at work, but perhaps the rigging/animating brain trust might be able to suss out what I am trying to say with my rambling and provide some insight.

Mine Too, next to Goofy of course! I've started rigging using the 2008 rig. I think the biggest challenge is building a face rig that will give me the range of expressions that Humphrey had. Recreating the eye shapes and mouth/lip movements will be pushing my rigging skills.

Well, here's some more. Rodney, I went back and forth on the chest tuft of hair. Watched some of the Humphrey movies, and what jumped out is that hair detail was animated when the bears were in profile, but normally for the chest it was more just a chest muscle kind of detail. So that is what I did, modeled in some pecs. I also added some shoulder spline rings and, as Rodney suggested, added a spline loop to define the stomach region. I'm feeling pretty good with the model right now...I think it is time to start the rigging process. I'll admit that I didn't think I would get this far. With the exception of Sergs' great job on the head, the body was a ground up effort...something I've never been able to pull off before. Now let's see if I have the same success with the rigging! pb_w2f.mov pb_solid2.mov

Thanks Largento! Rodney, I think there is still some work to do on this guy. The head still feels like it is riding too high on the shoulders, I squashed it down some, but I don't think enough. I really want his chin down on his chest like Humphrey's is. I was wondering about splining in the arc for the chest colors, so since you mentioned it, I'll give it a go. Now as to whether or not he should be an exact match to Humphrey, I'm on the fence. I certainly want him recognizable to Humphrey, I want to animate him using the same expressions, movements etc. But making him an exact match scares me a little since the ultimate goal is to create shorts with him in Disney park settings, on my Disney blog, and what I really don't want is nasty-grams from Disney lawyers! So I think I'll follow the artistic license route, make him look like, but not be an exact match of Humphrey, name him Pappa Bear, give him a family and go from there.

Here he is...take 2. Lots of spline rings removed..

You are right, though admitting it is painful. To relate a story to you, when I was publishing my magazine I thought that if I just kept bulling through, printing issues, ignoring the fact that I was hemorrhaging cash. It took me literally going bankrupt to learn the most important lesson of business: Know When To Let It Go! The nice thing about what you are doing, is that your real costs, other than the domain hosting, is your time (and as far as the IRS is concerned, is FREE). So you can afford to take a more artsy approach and not worry too much about making money. It takes time to build up a following on a web site, so put the web comic out there, promote it where you can, learn along the way and above all, enjoy the effort.

How sad is it that I can remember those 'toons! Great job and O the memories!

Thanks for the model. I'm going to hold it in ready reserve. If I get so frustrated in my own efforts I'll incorporate your model.

Can you show this happening? I'm not sure what you mean. If I run across it again I'll get a screen grab and make a copy of the model.

I'm digging the direction of motion comics (yeah I know I've been out of the loop for a while). When I was publishing my magazine (print) some 10+ years ago I started on the same sort of concept (Scottish storyline, drawn in anime style). Almost had a RPG video game deal out of it and a TV series through a producer in Canada. But alas, none of it came to be. Now, fast forward to 2013 and my soon to be high school graduate daughter is bugging me to help her do the same thing with her stories. I've been resisting, not really sure what the reception would be in the web-o-sphere, but with your approach, minimizing the effort like you are might make it a serviceable concept. Might need to buy another copy of A:M for Nicole (my daughter) and let her have at it!

Rodney: As soon as you mentioned the shoulders I saw it too, and did the ultimate hand to forehead duh! It sticks out like a sore thumb doesn't it. Your sketch of changes looks spot on, and I'll work on that this evening for sure. Robert, I cannot take credit for the head, serg did that for me last year, and did do a perfect job of it since he rigged it as well..just need to get the body to match the head..and this bear is ready for his debut performance! When of the challenges I had was that every time I stitched pieces of the body together, the spline paths seemed to have a mind of their own. That together with some really weird behavior with bias twisting splines totally out of whack and it became somewhat frustrating. The legs and feet I am not at all happy with. The feet I actually did about two years ago when I tried modeling the character, and were the only thing salvageable from that effort. Now i look at them and sort of cringe, since they are so spline heavy. One of the things I think I should do is go through and delete as many spline rings as possible to try and smooth of the mesh, I think that is where much of the "lumpiness" is coming from. One other thing that keeps wondering around in the back of my mind is whether or not I should add a spline to define the stomach region where the color is different. Right now it is a decal, which may be ok if I can get it applied properly. Lots to do before I can even start to think of rigging, but I'm bound and determined to do this right since I have plans for a lot of shorts for pappa bear aka Humphrey!

I never was all that great with modeling characters. Here's a first crack at him. I'm not really happy with it, but let's hear some comments...

I have several stories I've always wanted to animate where I needed a crotchety old man as the main character (I relate to them oh so well!). Ran across this facial reconstruction of Copernicus on Mental Floss and thought now there is a roto to build a cool old man from!

Bloody hell Rodney, way to go above and beyond! Let me give a little background on what i intend to do with our Humphrey here...... A few weeks ago I created a little blog on trip planning for Disney (I won't post the url here so as not to break any rules), and in trying to come up with a way to have the blog stand out from the rest I started a bit of brainstorming. Growing up one of the Disney series that I really loved was the Goofy how-to's. I resonate with Humphrey largely because my kids kid my with the nickname of Pappa Bear, and Humphrey is a rather likeable bloke as well. So I naturally put two and two together and came up with five. Create a series of shorts starring Pappa Bear, aka our version of Humphrey, that highlight some of the hints and tips from the blog. Create another blog for the virtual studio creating the shorts that highlights the animation process (and as a major component A:M), cross-polinate, and walla! we have some fun creating a new internet sensation. So my goal is ultimately have humphrey totally rigged to make animation as simple as possible to minimize the development time of each short. Keep the short down to no more than 3 to 5 minutes, and staged in Walt Disney World. What I am still trying to decide is if Humphrey will be a true 3D rendering or toon, and if the park set will be 3D generated or use actual footage of the parks (I have some folks who still work at for Disney who I could have shoot footage, but that could get problematic in getting footage that really matches what I want). I'm leaning towards a more toon rendering, since to me I want to keep as close to the original Disney style as possible, with the scenes either projection maps or true models. This is still in the planning stages, but I'm pretty much ready to start work on this. Rodney, looks like he made the job so much easier with what he has done, though I can't check out the model yet since I'm still in the office. Rodney, you truly rock man, thanks.

In truth as soon as I posted the topic Rodney was my hope too!

Rodney I would be most grateful!

So normally I would ask my daughter to do this for me, but her mind is on other things, only weeks away from making me a grandpa, so I'm coming to the forums. I am trying to dust off, improve, and capitalize on my meager modeling and rigging skills for a little project I have in mind. Below is a picture of Disney's Humphrey the Bear. It is exceedingly hard to find images of Humphrey that can be used to create a model from, this being the best I've found so far. Serg2 had created a head for me last year, but I wanted to do the body. My problem is that I, for some reason, have a real problem in imagining the body in 3D space from the flat picture. I hope I will have better luck with proper sketches that can be used as rotoscopes. So anyone out there in A:M forum land willing to help a soon to be granddaddy out??

Rich, you captured the spirit of my rant...well said

OK, I've got to chime in here...imagine my surprise to see myself thrown under the bus, or better yet buried in the back yard in this discussion! In talking about community projects in general, and Rear Window in particular, allow my to explain/defend myself on how that all went down. The genesis of Rear Window was a discussion very much like this one: Let's do a community project whoopee. Then when it came down to someone to manage it .... silence. A lot of people want to talk about this, it's a great idea, but when it comes down to someone volunteering to devote their time to run it, no one steps up. For RW, I was naive enough to think I could squeeze it into my schedule. Big mistake on my part, but I wanted to see the project done. The deadline slipped for a very good reason; only three groups actually made a short... not much of a community project really. So a second call for shorts went out, again silence. Then my own schedule got crazy and I had to hand it off to another very capable person. Very simply put, reality sucks. Time is money for every one on this forum, large community projects are time consuming, and therefore expensive, even when we are all volunteering. The three shorts that were done for RW are fantastic, but in my humble opinion, not nearly enough to make the overall project a success. That being said, griping about how RW may perhaps failed is sort of silly. You want a successful community project then great! But don't bitch over the failures of past projects, learn from them! Talk to the people who were involved, find out what worked and what didn't. Don't complain about it. And after you are fully informed, if you still want a community project, step up, and volunteer your time to manage it. I'm officially off my soapbox now.

I'm in William! Good luck. I've also added a link to my FB page.

Kickstarter contributors aren't expecting monetary payback. I think what you have on the site is sufficient. As for how to make money, merch certainly..but a dedicated web site with, sadly advertising is a good way as long as you can generate clicks is a thought.

Will, just looked over your proposed kick starter page. Some thoughts: At the end of the page you list risks etc. Drop them. Don't admit to only working part time on the project. People will only let go of their money if it feels at least minutely certain the project will be completed. By upbeat. Set the tone of barely contained excitement. I narrated video, much like a trailer is essential as well.

research airmail rates with usps..back when I was doing my magazine I lost me shirt shipping overseas..back then it was like $11 for printed media

I have an ftp account for you to upload to, or if you prefer, you can set up a dropbox acct. Email me at pappabearstudio at gmail dot com for the ftp credentials